In addition to these lichen photos, Kim Abeles' "The Invisible Connectedness of Things" features a 16-foot video wall, on display at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, paintings and "smog plates" made by students at Boulder's Manhattan Middle School. Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

A student studies in front of the 16' video wall featuring lichens on display inside the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. The art collection and show titled "The invisible Connectedness of Things" at two locations in Boulder, CO. The exhibit features lichens, in a 16' video wall (on display at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History) as well as photos, paintings, and "smog collector plates" made by students at Manhatten Middle School at the Air Care Colorado Boulder Emissions Testing Station. Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

A photograph on display in the waiting room at the Air Care Colorado Boulder Emissions Testing Station. The art collection and show titled "The invisible Connectedness of Things" at two locations in Boulder, CO. The exhibit features lichens, in a 16' video wall (on display at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History) as well as photos, paintings, and "smog collector plates" made by students at Manhatten Middle School at the Air Care Colorado Boulder Emissions Testing Station. Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

A "smog collector plates" by Manhatten Middle School students on display in the waiting room at the Air Care Colorado Boulder Emissions Testing Station. The art collection and show titled "The invisible Connectedness of Things" at two locations in Boulder, CO. The exhibit features lichens, in a 16' video wall (on display at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History) as well as photos, paintings, and "smog collector plates" made by students at Manhatten Middle School at the Air Care Colorado Boulder Emissions Testing Station. Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

I don’t mean teach us the dangers of global warming or preach to us about how we ought to be better citizens of planet Earth, but actually make people do something to improve the world around them?

Well, maybe. And that’s the slickest thing about Kim Abeles’ grandly titled “The Invisible Connectedness of Things.” Abeles has spread her multimedia installation to locations across Boulder, including the waiting room of the Air Care Colorado emissions-testing station. There it serves as a carrot of sorts meant to draw people in for a checkup: Get your car tested, get some free art. It’s surely better than sitting in those bland, beige waiting rooms without art.

Of course, you can take in Abeles’ work in other places: a museum, a school, the education gallery up the hill at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Each offers its own rewards as well as a share of teaching moments. Abeles has made a career of exploring particulate pollution — you can call it smog — and takes it on though various channels, which are assembled together at each location.

She is best-known for her “Smog Plates,” or “Particulates,” as they are called, and while working with kids at Boulder’s Manhattan Middle School, she has created several for this show. For each, Abeles and the students cut out stencils — they might be leaves, bikes, body parts — placed them on simple white dinnerware, and then allowed them to simply sit outside on the school’s roof for seven months to collect whatever particulates landed.

When the stencils were removed just the brown-gray particulates remained. The plates bear witness to the dirty stuff swirling through the air around us. This is what we breathe?

For “The Invisible Connectedness of Things,” Abeles has expanded her subject matter to lichen, the “part algae and part fungus” growths that live on tree trunks and rocks in the woods of Colorado and elsewhere. Exposed to the air, lichen absorb whatever lingers — including nitrogen from car emissions and agricultural fertilizers — and scientists can monitor the air by collecting them and analyzing their makeup.

Abeles has taken this idea and reinterpreted lichen as self-conscious guardians of the environment. She leads off her artist statement: “The lichen patiently watches us, in all our foibles and efforts.”

The Los Angeles-based artist made four trips to Colorado preparing the exhibit. Each time she hiked deep into the woods around Boulder, locating lichen and photographing them up close. Her photos of the lumpy, off-color growths make up a large part of the exhibits.

It’s not as much of a science project as it sounds, thanks to a few multi-media touches. At CU’s Museum of Natural History, Abeles constructed a giant wall of blown-up lichen photos. Among the blobs, she has placed small video screens, some of blinking eyes and some of the traffic moving around Boulder. We see the plants as witnesses, and we see ourselves under their constant surveillance.

It’s a bit literal, maybe, plants with eyes, and something of a bang over the head. But it is fascinating to stand and stare for a while; any art project that manages to entertain us while sending a clear message deserves an audience. This one gets extra points for teaching schoolkids a thing or two about the atmosphere along the way, and for making a few trips to the auto-emissions checkpoint considerably less boring.

The project is, no surprise, another successful production from EcoArts Connections, the Boulder organization that links art and science with the goal of raising consciousness about the world around us. The group doesn’t do much to grab credit for such projects, but it deserves plenty.